Buffy kills a bloody and beaten-up Caleb with the Scythe by slicing him in two from the crotch up. Angel gives Buffy an amulet intended to be worn by someone ensouled, yet more than human. He says he'll fight alongside her, but she rebuffs the offer and tells him to organize a second front with his team in case she can't beat The First. They discuss Spike, his soul, and Buffy's feelings for him; Angel shows obvious jealousy and annoyance about Buffy having feelings for Spike, while Buffy—annoyed by his childish and possessive attitude—questions his maturity ("Are you twelve?"). When Angel asks about the future, and if he has a place in it, Buffy says she still needs to grow up.

Buffy: I'm cookie dough. I'm not done baking. I'm not finished becoming whoever the hell it is I'm gonna turn out to be. I make it through this, and the next thing, and the next thing, and maybe one day, I turn around and realize I'm ready. I'm cookies. And then, you know, if I want someone to eat m—or enjoy warm, delicious, cookie me, then that's fine. That'll be then. When I'm done.

Angel: Any thoughts on who might enjoy—do I have to go with the cookie analogy?

Buffy: I'm not really thinking that far ahead. That's kind of the point.

As Angel walks into the shadows, Buffy tells him there might be a future for them, but it will be a long time coming, if ever. Angel's reply? "I ain't getting any older."

Back at the house, Dawn kicks Buffy's leg for having Xander try to take her away from Sunnydale in the previous episode. Spike is in the basement, working out his anger on a punching bag with a crude drawing of Angel's face on it. That sight irritates Buffy, who ponders putting the two vampires in a room and letting them fight out their problems. Spike asks for the amulet, whose exchange he had witnessed from the shadows. Buffy hands it over after she explains that it is meant only for a champion. She then tells Spike that she has nowhere to sleep, and after an initial prideful rebuttal, he invites her to stay.

Later that night, an insomnia-stricken Buffy paces the basement as Spike sleeps. As she paces, The First appears to her as Caleb, unhappy that Buffy killed him—but eager to point out how an army of the undead waits to rise from the Hellmouth and help The First become corporeal. It shifts into Buffy's form and taunts her, reminding her that she's the Slayer—the one Slayer in the whole world. The First disappears as Spike awakens, and Buffy tells Spike she's realized something she hadn't considered: they're going to win the fight.

Buffy meets with the Potentials and her other allies the next morning, unveiling her plan off-camera. Willow expresses her concerns about using magic again (especially since whatever magic she'll be using will be the most powerful magic she will have ever attempted) and asks Kennedy to kill her if it turns bad. Faith and Principal Wood have a personal discussion while preparing the school for the battle; Wood demonstrates that he understands her defensiveness over getting emotionally involved with men, but still asks her to give him a chance after the battle. During the night, Buffy goes to the basement, where she apparently spends her last night with Spike.

On the morning of the assault, Buffy and her army arrives at Sunnydale High in a yellow school bus. The Potentials head to the seal in the basement while Kennedy helps Willow set up her spell in Principal Wood's office. After trying to give a farewell speech, Andrew is dragged off by Anya. Dawn leaves to set up her post with Xander, determined to see her sister again. Principal Wood leaves to wait at his post for Giles. The original four Scoobies share a last moment with each other before the assault by...talking about going to the mall after saving the world.

Buffy: I'm having a wicked shoe craving.

Xander: Aren't you on the patch?

Willow: Those never work.

Buffy: Never.

Giles: And here I am, invisible to the eye, not having any vote.

Xander and Willow walk down the hallway with Buffy before each one leaves to handle their assignments, leaving Buffy alone as she walks to the seal, where the Potentials, Faith, and Spike are waiting. Buffy, Faith, and the Potentials cut their hands to open the seal with their blood. They climb down the hole in the ground and come face-to-face with the army of Turok-Han. The Ubervamps spot Buffy and her army before they're ready and attack. "Come on, Will," Buffy pleads.

Willow sits in Principal Woods' office, the Scythe before her. While chanting a spell, she places her hands upon the Scythe, and both she and the Scythe light up in an ethereal glow as her hair turns white. The scene then flashes back to Buffy revealing her plan: she wants to break the tradition of "only one Slayer per generation" by turning every Potential in the world into a Slayer.

Buffy: In every generation, one Slayer is born, because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule. They were powerful men. This woman is more powerful than all of them combined. So I say we change the rule; I say "my power" should be "our power". Tomorrow, Willow will use the essence of this scythe to change our destiny. From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer. Every girl who could have the power, will have the power—can stand up, will stand up. Slayers, every one of us. Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?

As Willow performs the actual magic, Kennedy tells Willow that she is a goddess. "And you're a Slayer," Willow replies. Willow collapses, exhausted ("That was nifty!"), as Kennedy takes the Scythe and delivers it to Buffy...

...who is deep in the fight with her army against the army of the Turok-Han, which now numbers in the thousands. As she pauses to give orders, Buffy is stabbed through her abdomen from behind by one of the Turok-Han and falls to the ground. She passes the Scythe to Faith and asks her to hold the line. While Buffy tries to recover, she watches several of the Potentials-turned-Slayers fall, including Amanda. In the halls of the school, a few Turok-Han and a small group of Bringers make it to the surface and attack the groups guarding the entrances. During the battle, one of the Bringers kills Anya, and Andrew fights until he is overwhelmed. Another Bringer stabs Principal Wood, then dies by Giles's hand. Xander and Dawn take on a group Turok-Han, who are disintegrated by sunlight when Dawn throws open a skylight window.

The onslaught seems relentless on all fronts, but nowhere more than in the Hellmouth, where The First appears to Buffy as a mortally-wounded copy of the Slayer.

The First: Oh, no. Ow. Mommy, this mortal wound is all...itchy.

It then kneels down in front of Buffy and mocks her attempt to stop its plans ("You pulled a nice trick; you came pretty close to smacking me down") before asking Buffy what more she wants. Buffy fires back with a angry retort—"I want you to get out of my face!"—then arises with renewed determination and knocks several Turok-Han off the ledge. Her determination helps reinvigorate the other Slayers, and as they fight, The First disappears. Right after that moment, Spike's amulet consumes him in blue light and blasts a hole upward into the sky. The amulet channels the sunlight shining through the hole, turning it into powerful rays that take out the Ubervamps. The entire cavern starts to shake, which the the surviving Slayers take as their cue to get out. Buffy tells Spike to escape, but he insists on finishing the job. They share a quiet moment as the world crumbles around them:

On the way out of the school, the Slayers find Andrew crouched in a corner. Xander yells for Anya, but doesn't see her dead and mangled body lying nearby; Dawn has to pull him out to the bus. Faith makes it on the bus last, and as it pulls away, Dawn looks back for Buffy—who has climbed to the roof of the school. Buffy runs along the school's rooftops in a desperate attempt to outrun the enlarging crater, then leaps onto the top of the bus at the last second. When she turns back around, she gets to watch the entire town of Sunnydale collapse into the crater.

After the ground stops shaking, everyone gets off the bus. Xander asks Andrew about Anya, and he says Anya died while protecting him, which seems to comfort Xander. Faith looks after a wounded Principal Wood, who charms her with a little bit of flirting despite his grave situation. While Kennedy, Vi, and a few others tend to the wounded Slayers, everyone else joins Buffy as she looks at the massive crater that was once Sunnydale. Giles asks how this could've happened, since everyone either died or is alive and with them. A distraught Buffy answers with one word: "Spike." Giles mentions that they should go to Cleveland, as there's another Hellmouth there—and lots more work to do. (An exhausted Faith responds, "Can I push him in?") The Scoobies lament the loss of the mall, which has ruined their post-war shopping plans.

After Dawn asks what they're going to do next, Buffy smiles as she contemplates the future ahead of her.

Chosen contains the following tropes:

Action Fashionista: When Angel first gives her the amulet, Buffy says she doesn't have an outfit that goes with it.

Blatant Lies: Andrew makes up one last story, that Anya died heroically saving his life instead of telling Xander she was virtually cut in half from behind by a Bringer.

Book Ends: The conversation between Buffy, Xander, Giles and Willow before the final fight mirrors one at the end of "The Harvest", and that conversation is the first time that all four of them have been back to Sunnydale high since Season 4. Likewise Angel backing away from Buffy into the shadows, as he did after their first meeting in "Welcome to the Hellmouth".

After that conversation, Buffy, Xander, Willow, and Giles walk down the hall. Giles is the first to split away from Buffy, then Willow, and lastly Xander, in reverse the order in which they met in "Welcome to the Hellmouth".

A bemused Giles mutters to himself "The world is doomed". He said the same thing at the end of in "The Harvest"

There are certain elements of this throughout the whole season, as Buffy metaphorically goes "Back to the Beginning" and finds the origin of the Slayer Line.

Brain Bleach: After hearing Caleb is dead, Xander suggests they all have a party in his eye-socket, squicking everyone out with the image.

Break the Haughty: A mildly humorous example when Wood critiques Faith on her bedroom prowess, claiming to be unimpressed. Faith is clearly very taken aback and suggests going again to prove him wrong.

In the Alternate Reality Episode "The Wish" (in which Buffy never came to Sunnydale) Giles phones up Buffy's Watcher to try and get her help. The Watcher complains that Buffy is very busy, what with Cleveland being a hotbed of demonic activity; Giles and the Watcher end up arguing over whether there's a Hellmouth in Sunnydale too. At the end of "Chosen" the Scoobies rejoice over having closed the Hellmouth, to which Giles dourly replies there's another one in Cleveland.

The opening two-parter of the series finished with Giles saying, "The Earth is doomed" in response to the Scoobies less-than-serious attitude to their task. Here the Scoobies act in a similar matter, causing Giles to say, "The Earth is definitely doomed."

Bring My Brown Pants: As the cast march into Sunnydale High for the final battle, Xander tells the Potentials where the bathrooms are. If they don't have to go, he suggests they picture what they're about to face — an army of Ubervamps under the Hellmouth. "Better to go now." Later one of the Potentials regrets not taking his advice when seeing what's facing them.

Andrew thanking his brother Tucker for inspiring him to raise demons ("The Prom").

Buffy complains about Angel turning up and acting jealous whenever she has a boyfriend, which also happened with Riley Finn in "The Yoko Factor".

Buffy, Faith and the Potentials charge into the Hellmouth, and then a flashback to what the plan was, similar to the end of Season Five when we find out what Buffy said to Dawn just prior to jumping in "The Gift".

Angel can hardly believe that Buffy is involved with Spike; the last time he saw them together in "Lovers Walk", he had to restrain Buffy from staking Spike on the spot. Whereas in that same episode, Spike expressed his disbelief that Buffy and Angel were "just friends".

The Champion: Spike asks for the amulet Angel brought. Buffy explains that it has to be worn by a champion, which Spike clearly thinks isn't him. Buffy then pointedly hands the amulet to Spike.

Dying Declaration of Love: As foretold by Cassie in "Help", Buffy finally says she loves Spike, though he doesn't believe her. Still, this is the first Love Confession Buffy has made to any boyfriend since the tragic events of "Innocence" in Season 2, so even her willingness to say it means something.

Earn Your Happy Ending: The Core Four survive the final battle, Buffy faces the prospect of a normal life where she no longer has the sole burden of being the Slayer, Faith meets a decent man who challenges her cynical isolationist crap, and Spike is reincarnated in the spin-off series.

Exact Eavesdropping: Spike walks out in disgust over how Buffy is fawning over Angel, right after which she starts making up excuses why Angel should leave.

Executive Meddling: The series finalé was originally planned as a two-hour event—but UPN only ordered 22 episodes instead of the required 23.

Failed a Spot Check: Xander is shouting out for Anya, but fails to see her dead body as she's lying among a pile of Bringer corpses.

Half Truth: Buffy says she needs Angel to go back to Los Angeles, to prepare a second line of defense if she can't hold the Hellmouth. Angel, however, is picking up the distinct smell of Spike, and realises she wants him out of the way to avoid confusing the issue.

Hoist by His Own Petard: The First taunting Buffy about being the lone Slayer to demoralize her backfires in its face: it gives her the idea to make all the Potentials full Slayers instead.

Holding Hands: Buffy and Xander exchange a hand squeeze before they part ways.

Hollywood Tactics: Buffy's plan to even the odds in the coming battle of her gang of Potential Slayers vs. the hundreds of uber-powerful vampires lurking in the Hellmouth is to have Willow cast a spell that will upgrade them all to full Slayer status. Fine, but instead of waiting safely for a few minutes until the spell is complete and then entering the arena fully powered-up and prepared, they instead inexplicably charge into the Hellmouth and hide out on a ledge hoping not to be seen. They are immediately spotted, and have to begin the fight severely outgunned and hold the line until Willow finishes casting. They should have waited in the basement above and chopped the ubervamps as they tried to crowd through the narrow Seal but hey; Rule of Cool.

How Dare You Die on Me!: Vi is seen shouting at a wounded Rona to stay awake. The Season 8 comics show she survived.

Buffy tells Angel it could be years before she's ready to settle down permanently with a guy, but she does sometimes think that far ahead. Angel says he's not getting any older.

Faith and Wood, for that matter. She seems to be giving him a chance, and at the end, when Wood "surprises" Faith by making it out alive, they seemed to have progressed to being a couple. This is only in the television continuity, however; the Season 8 comics reveal that the two did enter into a relationship, though it did not last, as Faith refers to Wood as "the ex" around a year later.

Near Villain Victory: Spike's amulet doesn't work. Buffy is mortally wounded, Faith is down and so is Kennedy. Then suddenly they all get up again.

Never Say Goodbye: Buffy calls out to Dawn as she's leaving for her allocated area. Dawn turns and says firmly, "No. Anything you say is gonna sound like good-bye." Buffy then turns to the rest of the Scoobies and engages in their usual Gallows Humor.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: The First taunts Buffy over how she'll always be alone. This gives Buffy the idea of sharing her Slayer power with all the Potentials.

Later, it's the First taunting her again that gives Buffy the strength to finish the fight.

First!Buffy: Oww! Mommy, this mortal wound is all itchy. You pulled a nice trick. You came pretty close to smacking me down. What more do you want?

Not So Dire: Several of the gang are shown looking at a map, discussing where they're standing and what they're planning to do. It turns out that they're not planning the final battle which may well decide the fate of the world — they're playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Not Staying for Breakfast: Wood is not surprised that Faith doesn't. He thinks it's because she's a Slayer, but when she explains her grim view of men ogling her he teases her that he's more attractive than she is, goading and intriguing her into first trying to do him on the spot, then continuing their relationship.

Buffy: I hate this. I hate being here. I hate that you have to be here. I hate that there's evil, and that I was chosen to fight it. I wish, a whole lot of the time, that I hadn't been. I know a lot of you wish I hadn't been either. (Kennedy and Rona look away) But this isn't about wishes. This is about choices. I believe we can beat this evil. Not when it comes, not when its army is ready, now. Tomorrow morning I'm opening the seal. I'm going down into the hellmouth, and I'm finishing this once and for all. Right now you're asking yourself, "what makes this different? What makes us anything more than a bunch of girls being picked off one by one?" It's true none of you have the power that Faith and I do. So here's the part where you make a choice.

Roof Hopping: Buffy chasing the bus, with the buildings collapsing behind her as she runs.

Rule of Cool: Joss has specifically cited this as the reason why all of the ubervamps suddenly start dying a lot easier than in "Bring On The Night", even when being fought by normal humans.

Security Cling: Averted; Buffy is eager to share her bed with Spike, platonically or otherwise, but in the middle of the night she starts gets up and starts pacing the basement, when the First appears.

Buffy: You vampires. Did anybody ever tell you the whole smelling people thing's a little gross?

Subverted when Buffy meets up with Spike later and he immediately starts snarking about Angel. Buffy says, "Let me guess, you smelled him." Spike responds that he also used his "enhanced vampire eyeballs to watch you kissing him." Busted!

Superman Stays out of Gotham: Angel lends only meager support in Buffy's final battle, despite evidence of The First Evil operating in Los Angeles (an assassin with a Bringer knife attempting to kill Faith in prison.) In his defense, though, Buffy asks him to lead a second front (presumably alongside Wes, Gunn, Fred, and Lorne) from Los Angeles in case she fails.

That Came Out Wrong: Buffy explaining why she's not ready for a permanent relationship (namely with Angel).

Buffy: I'm cookie dough, I'm not done baking yet, I'm not done becoming whoever the hell it is I'm going to be... maybe one day I turn around and realize I'm cookies, and then if I want someone to eat me... (beat) Er, enjoy "delicious cookie" me...

Too Much Information: Willow. Kennedy. Pierced tongue. Dawn winces, Giles looks like he's about to hurl and even Buffy struggles for a second during the speech.

Angel: It's very powerful and probably very dangerous. It has a purifying power, a cleansing power; possibly scrubbing bubbles. The translation is, uh...anyway, it bestows strength to the right person who wears it.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy